Often Irreverent, Mostly Rational Blog for Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. One Day, We'll Be Perfect.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Time for Prognostication is Over. Thank the Stars.

We're not sure how it happened, but the blog over the past few months has regressed into a stream of plucked-straight-from-our-butthole predictions on everything from win totals to call-up time frames to contract values to individual performances for the coming year, the near future and the distant future.

(Have we told you about how we think Canada's superior knowledge of robot arms will help us in the 2053 season?)

Generally, we like to have fun and jibber jabber with all of you throughout the offseason, but we have to say that we're utterly relieved to be done with that part of the calendar. It's easy to get caught up in looking ahead at the coming season, and trying to figure out how it's all going to play out.

But we'll confess to feeling like a bit of a fraud, because the answers we've been giving hither and yon about what may happen are just uneducated guesses, based mostly on hope, partially on dread, and generally in ignorance of any supporting data.

As we look around at the sports pages and throughout many of our regular web haunts, pre-season predictions seem to dominate the coverage at this point, and that is understandable.But we'd prefer not to play the part of the Oracle from here on out.

The fun part of baseball is not where you have all of your expectations proven out, thus establishing yourself as some sort of sage. The fun part is where you're surprised every day by the unpredictability of the outcomes, and the constant development of the narrative of the team, its players, and the game itself.

When Ricky Romero delivers the first pitch of the season tomorrow night, we're sure to feel a palpable sense of relief that the season is finally underway. There's plenty of interesting matter to discuss about the game that takes place outside the lines, especially given the management team that the Jays currently have in place.

But for us, the game is the thing. And we can't wait to begin the next chapter.